Reddit Thread about Writing in Obsidian

Summary

A great thread and conversation about writing a story, developing characters in Obsidian

url:: Link

Notes

Hey! I'm using Obsidian to plan/research for a book too!

I have tonnes of notes for locations, characters, writing tips, etc.

I also have a bunch of 'scene ideas' notes, and a bunch of 'plot ideas' notes. So if I have an idea of a plot point that involves Mother and Tom assaulting a castle, I would make a note titled Mother and Tom assault a castle. I will tag it #writing #plot #ideas #tom #mother #castle #attack

Then when it comes to writing Tom's plot arc, I just need to search for #tom AND #plot, and all the plot ideas I have for Tom will show up for me to compile.

I don't have much backstory yet, because my main characters are all young, and I begin the book right when noteworthy things start happening, so there's not much backstory there, really.

But if I did have an idea for backstory which involves two characters, there are two things I would consider.

1. ⁠Use the same sort of 'atomic note' technique that I use for plot ideas and scene ideas, and break things down into single ideas. Suppose as part of the backstory, Tom and Mother had a fight, and Tom left home for the big city, which is where he is when the story begins. I would create a note called Tom and Mother fight. I would tag it #writing #backstory #ideas #tom #mother #fight. Then I would transclude this note into both Tom and Mother's character notes. That way, when I edit the Tom and Mother fight note, it will automatically update in the Tom and Mother character notes.
2. ⁠Or I would write out the backstory event/plot point in Tom's character note, because he is the more prominent character. I would put it under a heading ### Tom and Mother Fight. Then I would transclude that heading over to the Mother character note. So when I edit the event in my Tom note, it updates automatically in the Mother note.

As a side note, I personally would get rid of your data dump page and copy each idea over to its own note. Then each idea can be tagged and/or sorted into a folder (or arranged under MOCs if that's what you use). This way you can more easily transclude these ideas into other notes, or search for them using specific tags etc. I feel like dumping a whole bunch of ideas into one data dump page is really defeating the whole point of Obsidian, which is ease of linking ideas, using tags and wikilinks.

Let me know if there are things I have said that don't make sense, or if you have any other questions!

up:: 📥 Sources